Chapter Text
“I’m sorry, I can’t save them all, I only have the power to send one away, and I made the decision that you, as the kid, should get the second chance,” Dr Strange’s face looked so serious.
“What no?! I need to help them, I can help!”
“I’ve seen every variation of the future. We aren’t going to win this Parker. Take this opportunity to live. We’re going to lose, but you will live,” Strange continued.
“Mr -Dr Strange, I don’t want this,” Peter ran towards Mr Stark who watched it with his Iron Man mask pulled apart, expressions visible.
“Peter, we’ve all agreed. It wasn’t fair of me to bring you into a fight like this, though we all know you would’ve shown up either way. We have a chance to save one of us by going to a dimension where Thanos doesn’t exist. No infinity stones. You can live your life,” Mr Stark was soft as he said the words, so much softer and gentler than he’d ever been when Peter had seen him as a kid.
“How am I supposed to live without anyone? Being the only one of us to make it?” Peter had snarled back, “I’m not better than the rest of you. I don’t somehow deserve to live while the rest of you die.”
“This one is just because of your age, by courtesy of being the only child, we’ve agreed to give you the chance. If we do somehow win, I will pull you back,” Dr Strange told him.
Peter could feel his body already starting to be pulled away, as though he were being squeezed through a tiny opening. He turned wide brown eyes at Mr Stark, who caught him as the squeezing grew so strong he felt like he couldn’t breath, couldn’t stand. He tried to open his mouth to argue, but he couldn’t even control that. He caught Mr Stark’s eyes, face close as his pseudo-dad held him. Peter felt the goodbye in those eyes.
“I’m sorry, but Pete, you will live! You are not going to drown in survivors' guilt or look for ways to come back. We will get you if it is safe, and until then, just live,” Mr Stark pleaded with him.
Pete saw Thanos land behind Mr Stark and opened his mouth again, to warn him, because Thanos is larger than expected. His face is harder and more cruel than Peter has been expecting and he needed to warn Mr Stark. He needed to do more than just warn Mr Stark, Peter needed to help protect him and the rest of his family. MJ, May, Ned, they were all depending on him to defeat this newest bad guy and keep them safe.
But then the squeezing reached its peak and everything went black.
Peter woke up with a gasp beneath a tree on the outskirts of Gotham, shivering, and trying to pull his shirt tighter around himself as he tried to pull himself out of the memory. It wasn't still happening. He wasn't facing Thanos anymore, he'd just dreamt about his last memory in his own dimension.
It had been a nice idea from Mr Stark and Dr Strange.
Sure Peter would just get a do over in a new dimension.
Except for the fact, he didn’t know anyone, didn’t have anything, and he was 16 years old. He literally didn’t even have a high school diploma in order to be able to get a job.
It had only been three days, but Peter already wondered if he was going to survive this new dimension.
It wasn’t winter here, but it also wasn’t the end of May like the dimension he had left. Based upon the bright colors of the leaves and the cold breeze blowing through him, he suspected it was sometime in the fall.
If seasons even worked the same here as they did back home.
Taking stock of what he currently owned, Peter obviously had his spidersuit. Apparently, Dr Strange had tucked some legal documents into his pockets during the dimension hop, because he did have his birth certificate and social security card.
So long as there was still a Queens, New York, he’d be fine. And no one else had his social security number.
He always kept a set of highly compressed civilian clothes in another pouch of the spider suit, so he’d had that. It’d been May back home though, so he had a tshirt and jeans, nothing warm.
He’d been dropped on the edges of a city. From Queens himself, his first inclination had been to head into the city. But Gotham wasn’t anything like New York.
There seemed to be a rot in the city, a casual cruelty that had traumatized even a native New Yorker (a fairly cruel breed themselves).
First, there was the lack of any help offered in the city.
There was a single soup kitchen, but it had been a dirty kitchen with crumbling brick facade and sneering, unfriendly faces. And it was the only one! The literal soup they served was a small bowl of thick grey goop that smelled like a skunk and tasted as bad. For a city of this size to have only one such resource that offers only one meal, craziness.
He hadn’t found any homeless shelters listed or food pantries. No proper, free, legal resources for struggling people.
And there didn’t seem to be a safe place on the streets to rest.
All benches had arm rests in the middle. People laid out spiked chains on their stoops for the night.
He’d made the mistake of trying to huddle around a fire under a bridge with what appeared to be some other homeless people. It was something that was done often enough back home.
Not here apparently.
Apparently in this dimension the gangs had a claim on each bridge, as one of the only decent places for a homeless person to stay without shelters or other options. He’d been run off quickly, barely avoiding getting beat up, even if his healing factor could heal it, it still would’ve hurt.
“Hey, stop! Come back!” he yelled at the pickpocket running on his second day in a new dimension.
Even without web shooters, he was still faster than the average human, and he was able to capture the wannabe thief.
Reaching into the struggling man’s pockets, he’d found a cellphone, a touch bulkier than the slim Stark models he was used to.
He held it up to the scowling man’s face, “Got facial recognition on this thing? Chuh-ching! Yeah you do.”
He dialed 911 as the man struggled afresh, “Hello, I’ve got a thief I stopped down here. He had quite a few wallets on him that all say they belong to different people.”
The cop who showed up a few minutes later had been his next wake up to this dimension. He knew that was technically vigilante work and it sometimes pissed off cops. He hadn’t been expecting the cop to swing at him with the baton.
“What the heck?” he yelled at the officer.
“Get out of here punk. Thanks for the extra cash though,” the cop had smirked at him while he emptied the wallets of all cash and credit cards right into his own pocket, dropping the IDs to the ground.
Peter gaped at him, “What are you doing?”
“This idiot was nice enough to gather some extra cash for me. I’ll keep it, and in exchange, not take him into the precinct. Sounds good to you, buddy?” the officer jabbed at his thief with the baton.
The thief flinched away from the blunt force weapon, but shrugged, “S’fine with me. I can go gather up some more wallets.”
“That’s wrong! You are acting like a criminal!” Peter couldn’t keep his mouth shut, scowling at the officer.
Who laughed at him, “New to Gotham kid? Let me give you a piece of advice then, I don’t know a single officer in this city who wouldn’t do the same thing I just did. And, in fact, the next one would probably beat you to within an inch of your life for bothering us over something this petty. And still keep the cash, mind you. Next time, don’t try to be a hero. Mind your own damn business.”
“Ok, sure I should mind my business, but why are you doing this?”
“Listen kid, the only one who might give a damn is that Bat and his protégés,” the police officer said, twirling the baton.
“Bat?”
Both the officer and thief stopped to gape at him.
“Yeah, Batman? Gotham’s super hero?” The thief prompted.
“And his band of merry robins? You’ve never heard of them?” The officer sounded appalled.
“Well, you better learn about them quick. The bay can’t stand metas in his city. He’s fond of his own territory,” the thief said with a knowing look at Peter.
Peter had a feeling he might know what a meta was, “meta?”
“God, man, don’t you know anything? Metahuman, what I’d guess you are with how fast you ran,” the thief sneered at him.
“Wait, are you mega?” The officer took a step closer to Peter.
Peter had left the scene quickly, shaking his head in disbelief.
His stomach pains were definitely the worst part of the new universe.
One time, Mr Stark had gotten bored and ran detailed analysis of the metabolism and eating habits of all of the Avengers. Even though Peter weighed about half of Captain America (maybe), their metabolism and food per day were incredibly similar. In this new city, Peter wasn’t consuming enough calories for a regular human let alone a superhuman. Even though it had only been three days, his body had quickly been eating away at any stored fat he’d had, leaving himself looking even more shrimpy than normal.
On the third day in Gotham, he’d been so desperate for food that he’d tried dumpster diving. The soup kitchen gave out one oily meal a day, but his metabolism was too high for that.
Like everything in the city, that had been a mistake too, he’d felt himself yanked back by his hair after pulling a single moldy bread loaf from the dumpster.
“Lookie, here, boys, I found someone stealing from our dumpster,” a rough voice had taunted him, Peter’s head snapping up and to the side at the feeling and voice, taking in a group of four men, the closet one looking the largest and stupidest, which probably meant he was the leader.
His spider sense had warned him just a second too late, or maybe he’d been too exhausted to notice. It wasn’t like he’d slept much in the last three nights with no safe place to bunker down.
He’d gotten a few bruises to his face for that. It was always hard not to go overboard when fighting regular humans, a basic punch that could literally kill them or hospitalize him. So when he was this tired, it was often safer for the humans to just take the punches and move on.
Now, the sky was just starting to brighten at the corners, and Peter did feel a bit better after getting some sleep. Perhaps it wasn’t quality sleep sitting upright under a tree, but sheer exhaustion allowed him some rest.
As if on cue to block his vaguely hopeful thoughts, his stomach grumbled loudly. He grabbed at his stomach as pain echoed out from the empty organ.
Standing up, he faced towards Gotham, spreading out in front of him.
Sighing, he looked behind him. It was a road, but there wasn’t much that way. It felt less like the city this way, though it was literally a five minute walk outside of the main city. On the right side, he could see some sort of large stone building.
He squinted, leaning into his better than average eyesight for a second, muttering to himself “What is that place?”
It was truly massive, now that he focused on it, stone layers rising at least three stories high, a square tower on each corner. There was a landscaped lawn spreading up to it, split by a round driveway up to the impressive front steps.
“Is that a mansion?” he asked himself, considering. If it was some sort of museum or government building, the walk there would be a bust. But if it was a mansion, the home of some rich millionaire, they might have some work he could complete in exchange for food.
He looked back at Gotham, remembering how he’d been literally beaten off of the dumpsters .
Shrugging to himself, he headed towards the imposing stone building.
Up close, it was even more impressive, with his neck bent backwards, he looked up and up. He couldn’t see any signs listing it as a public building though.
Peter looked to the sides of the building, but he couldn’t spot a clear servants door, and he didn’t really want to walk the entire way around the building. One, kind of creepy of him. Second, he was really hungry.
So he walked up to the also imposing front door and gently lifted the door knocker, a gargoyle with large bat wings. It didn’t matter that he had been gentle, the gong noise was resounding. Then there was silence for a few minutes, and Peter shuffled his feet, toeing at the ground without looking up much.
A swing of the door, and he was face to face with a much older man, what little hair he had completely white. He was in a smart black suit with a black bowtie.
This was about when Peter began rambling, “Hello, I’m Peter. I was wondering if you guys had any small jobs around here I could do in exchange for some food? I’m not looking for a handout, but I thought maybe I could cut the grass or clean the gutters or maybe cook something but I don’t really know how to cook anything fancy but I can follow a recipe or I could clean, but I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to rob you guys which is why I started with outside jobs. You’re welcome to do a pat down before I leave just to ensure you don’t think I lifted anything.”
He forced the word vomit to a stop and stared at the man. The man stared back impassively.
Peter’s stomach growled, as the man’s mouth opened. He shut it again as he listened to the frankly loud sound of Peter’s stomach, louder than a loaded Mack truck heading up a mountain.
Peter blushed, scarlett, brighter red than the Scarlet Witch’s hair.
“Come inside, young sir, please,” the man’s voice was thick with a British accent. For a second, Peter worried that Gotham was somewhere in Europe, until he remembered that everyone he had spoken to up until this point had a normal American accent.
“Uhm, yeah, sure,” he mumbled, following the man down the hallway, but almost immediately off a branch and down a half level, into the kitchen and more servants type corridors. While still opulent (the kitchen was full commercial grade with multiple ovens and sooo many burners), it wasn’t the extravagant over the top richness of the more visitor friendly parts.
“Sit,” the man said simply, back turned to him as he pulled out containers and set a pan on the stove.
“I’m uh Peter Parker, I don’t remember if I mentioned that already,” Peter said into the awkward quiet.
“You did the first name, though not your family name. I am Alfred.”
Alfred set down a large bowl of oatmeal in front of Peter within minutes, topped with what looked like brown sugar and cinnamon. It was a touch hot to eat right away, but Peter scarfed it down anyway. When he had finished it within minutes, Alfred simply scooped more into his bowl without comment.
A single white eyebrow raised at the quantity of food the skinny teenager was putting away, but Peter was too hungry to notice.
Once he had finished, Alfred fixed him with an impassive stare, “Right, I shall have you pressuring washing the back patio.”
He led the way quickly through the manner, Peter unable to keep track of all the turns and different corridors needed. The back patio was larger than most entertaining venues, made of interlocking pavers. There were different levels with three gazebos and meticulously maintained landscaping outside of it, separating it from a lawn spreading out dotted with a few trees.
Attached to the far side of the building, there did appear to be a gardeners shed. When Alfred unlocked it and opened it, Peter was surprised to find his first hint of things looking less than perfect. There were some cobwebs hanging down, and a bit of dirt and leaves on the floor. Alfred didn’t comment on this, so Peter didn’t either.
After he had started the pressure washer, Peter started to realize that the patio was pretty dirty too, with the pressure washer leaving the pavers a light tan instead of the dark brown he had assumed.
Peter sighed, this was going to be a larger job than expected.
When Alfred came out to fetch him for lunch (lunch on top of breakfast!), Peter was fairly soaked through with smelly water and covered with a fine layer of dirt and grime. He hasn’t realized how much pressure washing would make himself dirty.
The pavers though, looked pristine.
“Are your arms sore?” Alfred asked mildly as they walked swiftly back through the maze of a manor.
“Nope! I’m good to go longer, but I think I’ve about finished with the pavers,” Peter said, stretching out his arms and feeling for any aches.
Another single white eyebrow went up on Alfred’s face.
It stayed up during lunch as Peter demolished nearly an entire loaf of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“When you’ve finished the pavers, come back here and you can help me to prepare supper,” Alfred informed him as they started the trek back to the pavers. Peter took that as a gentle reminder to remember the way this time and took pains to figure out which way they were going.
It didn’t take Peter long to finish out the pavers, but he was surprised to find Alfred watching him before he could head back in.
“Before we start supper, I remembered there were a few garden items I wanted to move. I’m getting a little on in years to move such things alone. They’re a touch heavy, but I’m sure they won’t be too much for a young lad like you,” Alfred said mildly, moving towards the landscaping.
He had Peter move several marble busts and bird baths to different locations in the flower beds before nodding and leading the teenager into the house. He set Peter on chopping and peeling a giant stack of vegetables, russet potatoes, multicolored carrots, and onions. Peter stared at the multicolored carrots in slight amazement, but it wasn’t long before the monotony of the task had his eyes taking long blinks and his hands moving slowly.
Alfred walked over and Peter’s eyes snapped up to him.
“Sorry, Mr Alfred, I’ll go faster, I know I was draggin’ there a bit,” it seemed like even his words were slurred ever so slightly.
“Come along now, Mr Parker, follow me,” Alfred led him through the mansion to the high attic, Peter hesitating a bit but his spider senses were completely calm.
The corridors here were narrow again and not as brightly lit as the main entrance areas. It gave the appearance of servant’s hallways again. Alfred opened a door to a room with two sets of bunk beds, one on each wall. The wall over the top bunk bed on the right side was slanted where the roofline cut through the space of the room. There was a tall dresser with four drawers and another door at the back of the room that appeared to lead to a bathroom. Peter turned confused eyes on Alfred, who was setting a previously unnoticed covered platter on the dresser.
“Here is some supper. Get some sleep for tonight and we can discuss things in the morning when you are more refreshed, yes?” Alfred instructed him in the same calm, measured voice he’d been using all day.
“Thank you! I mean, are you sure? I guess if you own the house you can put me here,” Peter rambled.
Alfred finally gave a hint of a smile, “Young sir, I am the butler, I certainly do not own the place. But there is room in this servant’s corridor and you may use it for the night. One more question, how old are you?”
“Oh, uh, I’m 18, sir,” Peter lied, cringing as he said it. Alfred turned unimpressed eyebrows on him, but simply hummed a response.
Peter stumbled through his thanks while Alfred took his leave. He found a warm plate piled high with mashed potatoes, vegetables, and a chicken thigh. He made short work of the plate and collapsed into the twin size bottom bunk bed, asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
Alfred paused in the kitchen, thinking.
He’d been faced with a choice this morning.
Well, he faced choices everyday.
Whether to wear his dinosaur socks or his daisy socks hidden underneath his formal suit that he wore the same everyday.
Whether to make a cake or cookies for the boy’s dessert, and if Cass and Steph needed care packages since they wouldn’t be staying in the manor for a while.
Alfred had to make many decisions in a day.
But this morning he faced a moral decision.
Regardless of what the boy says, there was no way he was a legal adult. Alfred made a note to ask about high school, if he even had a high school diploma though he already felt certain that he didn’t.
Despite the boy’s age, though, Alfred wasn’t required to help him.
It was Gotham City, where only the strong or the very cruel survive. Even if the boy looked like he had been starved for weeks, in dirty clothes, with bruises cutting across his face, Alfred hadn’t been required to help him.
There was certainly no obligation for him to have fed him as well as he had either. Let alone to give him a safe place to sleep for the night.
Alfred paused, remembering a time when he wouldn’t have been able to put Peter in any available servant room because all of the beds would have been full. A time when there were far fewer Waynes then there were now yet many more staff members. Bruce had made it nearly his full time job to gather in errant children.
He called Bruce.
“Alfred?”
“Master Bruce, I am hiring an apprentice,” Alfred mixed up cookie batter for the next day, holding the phone between his shoulder and cheek. He heard the sounds of Bruce standing up abruptly and moving to a quieter location.
“Excuse me?”
“I have found a young teenager, though I cannot tell you his exact age because I do believe he is lying about it, as well he might be a meta. Regardless, I have chosen him to be my protege,” Alfred used an ice cream scoop to start scooping out the dough to chill. The boys liked large cookies.
“I will double your salary,” Bruce said.
“This has nothing to do with my pay. I am entirely satisfied with my job, but I am not getting any younger,” Alfred continued.
“Triple it,” Bruce countered.
“That won’t make me any younger,” Alfred retorted.
There was silence over the line for a while as Bruce mulled over things. Alfred gave him his time.
“What did he look like? You could’ve told me that I was adopting a new son,” Bruce said finally.
“I considered it for a millisecond, but that certainly would not be my place. I am still just your butler, and I cannot simply tell you that you will be adopting a new son. Who knows if he would even fit in. But I truly am not getting younger. You have seven children now, even if you haven’t adopted all of them legally. There is much more work than when it was just you and I. I remember when the manor had a full work staff. There is perhaps too much for just myself, and then providence dropped a starving young man into my pathway for me to mold into a new generation of caretaker,” Alfred tried to explain himself.
“You’ve never been just my butler, and you know that. I hadn’t realized you felt stretched thin,” Bruce was quiet.
“As the quote goes, “Like butter scraped over too much bread.” Or perhaps not that bad yet. I see areas of the manor that I am embarrassed by. I should have things in spick and span shape, yet there is a small pile of laundry to be down in the bowels of the manor. Then to carry all of those loads back up. Let me have this protege. If he is not a match, he will never know the secrets of the manor, but I will have my work load decreased for a while,” Alfred continued, feeling like he was saying too much and wondering why he was trying so hard for the strange boy.
Bruce must’ve had the same thought, “You sure want him as your apprentice.”
“I see something in him. I think it must’ve been what you saw each time you brought a new person into this manor,” Alfred said softly, “Besides, this is a unique opportunity. Your children need a new generation of someone they can rely on. Someone who will be there for them long after you or I. And sometimes that confidant is not a relative.”
A pause.
“I want to meet him before anything too official. Send me the information on him that you do have and I’ll start running information. Maybe send Tim on his trail too, the boy is excellent at sniffing out secrets,” Bruce said.
Alfred smiled to himself and prepared on how to offer a job to Peter Parker as the new butler in training/janitor of the Wayne Mansion.